


Reality Is What You See

by Drarrymadhatter



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Guilt, Other, Survivor Guilt, driven mad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-03
Updated: 2020-06-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:48:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24515653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Drarrymadhatter/pseuds/Drarrymadhatter
Summary: Harry has spent the summer after the war drowning in guilt. Now, mid way through 8th year, his demons seem to have caught up with him. After coming face to face with hateful versions of his loved ones, Harry runs and hides in an empty classroom, only to be comforted by Sirius.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Reality Is What You See

**Reality Is What You See**

Harry blinked the stinging from his bloodshot eyes as he made his way around the castle grounds. Along the forest perimeter — never inside, the mirage of dead centaurs and students flickering sporadically as he went. One night, he knew he would need to make his way back to where he died. But not tonight. 

He pressed on and made his way, as usual, past Hagrid’s hut, where a light was on and smoke rose from the chimney. The new structure was sturdy and homely looking, but Harry could see the ghost of the old hut rippling in front of his eyes — the flames as it burned up everything inside it the night Dumbledore died. He looped the greenhouses and began to make a full circle of the Black Lake, remembering the Death Eaters and students that floated lifelessly face down in its tumultuous waters after the battle was won. The giant squid poked a tentacle out in solidarity. The squid had had a unique view of the whole thing, after all. Harry nodded at the squid in recognition without breaking his stride. 

He made the same pilgrimage every night, taking in every lingering memory of the battle that had raged here only a few months prior. It was important to see, really  _ see _ , and to remember. Not like he would ever forget, but still. It was fresh and raw and rightly so. Harry fished in his pockets for his cigarettes and lighter, not slowing his stride as he lit one and put the packet and lighter away again. The smoke burned his lungs as he took a long drag, before blowing the smoke out harshly. Hogwarts loomed in front of him, the silhouette of the castle imperious and foreboding against the twinkling constellations that lit the night sky. The repairs that had taken place over the summer had gone well — one might not notice there had been a battle here if they didn’t look too closely. 

_ And for the most part, it seems as if no one is _ , he thought to himself as he continued to suck on his cigarette. Everyone looked tired but happy to be back, greeting their friends with ease and giving a wan smile of remembrance whenever a fallen classmate was brought up in conversation. Everyone was all about a new start, or “new beginnings to heal past hurts,” as McGonagall had phrased it in her start of term speech. Harry scoffed at the memory of those words just a few months past as he stood in the castle’s shadow.  _ Just what was that meant to mean? This isn’t a new beginning; not at all. More like some kind of hellish limbo, at least for me anyway _ . This had always been his home, his sanctuary, but now? It was hulking and intimidating and held him accountable for every single lost soul within its walls and grounds. 

Harry took a steadying breath and forced himself to walk towards the main entrance, his legs like lead with every dreaded step. This was the worst part of his nightly ritual. The grounds, although filled with horror, were at least out in the open. Sometimes, when inside the castle, he felt like he would suffocate on the scent of the dead that mingled in the air. 

Harry huffed in wry amusement at the memory of telling Hermione about the lingering death. Her response had been to ask him if he was okay. When did he last get a good night’s sleep? Did he need a Mind-healer? The look of indignation on her face when Harry told her to take her fake concern and drown herself in the lake was somehow soothing to him, a balm for his pain. What was it to her if he was lucky to get two hours sleep a night? As he reached the heavy doors, he took one last draw, the lit tip glowing dangerously in the night air, before flicking the cigarette away. Then, swallowing his panic down as best he could, he pulled the doors open, went inside and — froze. 

He could see them all, lying on the curse-cracked stone floor, slumped against blood-stained walls. He could see the mangled remains of Lavender Brown, her screams muted as if they were coming from far away. In one corner, an older boy was slumped over a younger girl; siblings, he guessed. The blood leaking from her body had stained her brother’s face, making his lifeless eyes seem all the more prominent. He forced himself to resume walking, stepping carefully between bodies and over rubble that seemed far too real to be imagined, as he headed into the Great Hall. 

As soon as he stepped inside, he was assaulted by the noise. The agonising screams and broken sobs rising and falling in tormenting waves. This was where he usually ran back to the eighth-year common room and drank his body weight in firewhisky. With the exception of the starting feast, he had managed to avoid the Great Hall, with Kreacher bringing him food to his dorm which he then forced his  _ master _ to eat. But he knew he needed to do this, needed to face the ghosts, and then, hopefully, they would let him rest. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep going if they didn’t.

He forced himself to walk the length of the room, taking in each casualty he could see carefully. Even the ones he didn’t recognise. He could see Fred Weasley in the arms of his brothers, a grin still etched on his pale features. The wails of the Weasley’s echoing around the room made his breath hitch in his chest and his bones shake painfully. He looked at the row of bodies laid out on one of the house tables — some bloody, some broken, all lifeless. His eyes fell upon Remus and Tonks, hands entwined in death, and suddenly he couldn’t take it anymore. 

Before he knew he had made a conscious decision, he had turned and started to run, trying not to step through any of the bodies littering the floor. However, before he had gone more than ten steps, the wails from the dead and dying ceased and a firm voice stopped him dead in his tracks.

“Harry, come back.”

Fear sloshed over him like a bucket of ice water and caused his teeth to chatter violently. He knew that voice. It had given him advice, comfort, and taught him defence better than anyone else ever had. 

Slowly, stiffly, like a grotesque marionette, Harry turned around. Remus was no longer lying next to Tonks on the table and instead stood a few yards away. His eyes were the same compassionate brown, set deep within the grey decomposing face. 

“Where are you going, Harry?” called the spectre. 

“I- I can’t.” stammered Harry, “Y-you’re not h-him!”

“You want to run, don’t you, Harry? I can see it in your eyes. But you can’t run from us.”

“W-what do you want?” Harry’s whispered words seemed to fill the room, and he dreaded the answer the — whatever it was — would give.

“You, Harry. We want you. You abandoned us to our deaths, and now you owe us.”

As the spectre finished his condemnation, the room was suddenly alive with howls and cries and sobs and screams. All the bodies he had seen lying on the floor were suddenly on their feet, fierce eyes set in dead flesh. Harry felt his mouth hang open in horror as he saw Fred drag his rotting body towards Remus, his grin twisted into a malicious sneer. A wail snagged his attention, causing him to watch Tonks begin to sit up on the table, her usually bright hair lank with decay. She —  _ it  _ — pushed itself — herself — itself off the table with bloated grey hands and limped her way to where Fred and Remus waited, her wailing punctuating her steps. More and more of the dead rose and joined the rapidly growing group near where Harry stood rooted to the spot in abject terror. 

“You killed us, Harry. You cannot leave us here. You are one of us.” 

At Remus’ damning words, the spectres began to move forward as one, their limbs jerking and dragging like zombies from a muggle horror movie, their shouts and cries rising to a crescendo. Harry needed to move,  _ Merlin he wanted to run, _ but he couldn’t move his body at all. His eyes were frozen forward. His breath was caught in his throat, making him feel like he was strangling slowly. The tables and benches were starting to vibrate dangerously. The windows were shuddering in their panes. And the bodies moved closer. Tears poured from Harry’s eyes, his nose running onto his upper lip. He needed to close his eyes, to run,  _ anything _ to block out what was happening, but he couldn’t. He was stuck, and his eyes and his feet wouldn’t obey him. 

A movement caught his eye, and he saw Fred chuckling silently with his arm around the shoulders of a much smaller boy, his brown hair matted with blood, eyes accusing and without pity. 

“All I wanted was a photo, Harry.” Colin Creevey’s whisper somehow managed to carry, piercing through the noise of the others with ringing clarity. “Just a photo, and you killed me for it.”

It was something in the eyes of Colin that did it. So similar to what they had been in life, yet filled with something foreign, hateful, beying. Harry gave a strangled cry and wrenched his feet into action, running full pelt for the entrance hall. The noise of the spectres behind him grew louder, the thumping of their feet growing ever closer. If he could just get outside —

He skidded to a stop in the entrance hall as the bodies he saw lying there before were now on their feet blocking the doors to the castle grounds. They glared, pointed, and moved towards him as one. Operating on pure instinct, Harry threw himself up staircase after staircase, slipping through shortcuts and thundering along the corridors. He could hear them following him and knew they wouldn’t be far behind. As his feet slapped along the stone passages, he passed more and more bodies of victims, innumerable and judging. He didn’t slow down to see if they joined in the chase. 

Finally, Harry came to a dead-end corridor lined with several classroom doors. He’d been running for what seemed like hours and his lungs felt like they were filled with Fiendfyre. He could hear the dead were drawing near, still in pursuit, although a little further behind than he thought. Frantically, he began to try each door, rattling the handles aggressively as he found them all locked. In desperation, he whipped out his wand and cast  _ Alohomora _ at the nearest door, then threw himself through the door, slamming it tight the second he was inside. He cast a locking charm at the door and sagged against one of the desks.  _ Breathe _ , he told himself desperately.  _ Breathe, damnit! _

However, before he could get a grip on himself, the door began to rattle with what sounded like hands pounding on the other side. Harry hissed in panic as the frantic cries of the bodies rang clearly through the heavy wooden door, causing the hairs on his body to stand on end. Quickly, he levitated several heavy desks and chairs in front of the door and cast a Protego over the barricade as an extra defence.  _ They can’t get in. _ He tried to reassure himself as best he could that he was okay, as he slowly backed away, hissing in shock as his back made contact with the far wall of the classroom. 

_ Why won’t they leave me alone _ ? Harry felt the utter despair settle around him like a weighted blanket and suddenly, he felt the perfect storm of his emotions erupt out of him. He beat his fists against the stone wall, punching desks and kicking chairs, anything to get the poison within him out. He screamed at the top of his lungs, trying to drown out the noise from the bodies, rendering his throat raw and swollen.

Finally, he stopped and sagged dejectedly against the far wall, utterly spent and emotionally wrung out. He gasped and choked on his sobs as they racked through his body and allowed himself to slide to the floor, his feet underneath him, his head back against the wall, his bloodied and swollen hands limp at his side, his knees to the side. He could feel his body shudder with each breath and whimper, and he finally let his eyes close in resignation.

Several minutes passed by as Harry waited — for what, he wasn’t sure. Slowly he became aware that the door was no longer being pounded, that the yelling and screeching had stopped, and his shoulders slumped in blessed relief. After a few more minutes, Harry pulled his cigarettes out of his pocket — wincing as his hands protested the movement — and managed, after a struggle to stop his hands from shaking, to light one. He sucked at it deep, eyes closed in pleasure, and held the smoke in his lungs for a few seconds before letting it slowly billow away. He took another long pull, and another, feeling the nicotine slowly fill him with a false sense of calm. 

“You know those things will kill you?”

Harry’s eyes shot open, only for him to close them again and breathe for a second before opening them back up. 

“This isn’t real,” whispered Harry, unable to believe his eyes.

“Of course it’s real. Honestly, Harry.” Sirius smiled as he did in life, making his eyes dance with amusement and love. “You should know by now that some impossible things are, in fact, possible.”

“But...you fell through the veil”

“And yet, here I am. I said I would always be here when you needed me, remember? I keep my promises, Harry.”

“Why haven’t you —”

“Because you didn’t need me before now; not really.” Sirius lowered himself to sit near Harry, careful to leave a gap between them. “You always had someone else to help. Now, though, you’re alone and lost, aren’t you?”

“I wish I could sleep. I want to stop feeling this way. But everywhere I go, people die.” Tears began to slide down his cheeks again, and he did nothing to stop them.

“No, Harry, they don’t,” corrected Sirius gently. “You’ve been unlucky, but not everyone has died. You have the Weasleys, McGonagall, Ron and Hermione. So many people who are still alive and who will help you, if only you let them.”

“I can’t,” gasped Harry, the guilt beginning to press back down upon him. “They lost people that I was responsible for, and I —”

“Stop, Harry. Just stop. You didn’t kill anyone. You did the best you could with what you had, and no one, and I mean  _ no one _ , could have asked anything more of you.”

“I killed you,” whispered Harry.

“No, Bellatrix killed me.” Sirius’ voice was firm and sure in Harry’s ears. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Harry. You must believe me.”

“How can I believe that when I was just chased up here by a horde of those whom I killed? They’re everywhere!” Harry looked towards the door wildly, before looking back at his Godfather.

“And you came and hid in this room, after pounding your fists bloody, I see.”

“Dead people, Sirius! Dead people chased me! Of course, I ran!”

“That’s the difference between us, isn’t it? I’m not afraid of  _ my _ demons.” Sirius looked Harry firmly in the eye, refusing to let him off the hook. 

“I’m not afraid, Sirius. I’m just —”

“You are! You’re afraid of what you saw, what you had to do, what you’re supposed to do now, how people see you, and of living when others can’t. You. Are. Afraid. You need help, Harry. You need to let people help you.”

Harry closed his eyes for a moment and leaned his head back against the wall. Sirius was right. He needed help. He took a minute to get his tears back under control and then faced Sirius, only to find he was gone. The room was empty save for himself. The barricade was still in front of the door.  _ He was never here _ , he thought bitterly,  _ it was all in my head. _ He started to feel a familiar sadness creep up over him, when suddenly he remembered the last words Dumbledore had ever said to him —  _ “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean it is not real? _ Harry couldn’t help the slight chuckle that rumbled it’s way briefly through his chest.  _ The old man had a point _ , smiled Harry to himself.

Careful not to further inflame his hands, he lifted his wand and sent his Patronus to the Headmistress. He watched the stag rear on its hind legs in an impressive display, before charging through the door to deliver his message. She would know what to do, and then hopefully, he could lay his demons to rest.


End file.
